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Sea Grant and Aquaculture in Maine: A History

Program celebrates 30 years of marine research

By Catherine Schmitt

In 2010, the University of Maine is celebrating the 30th anniversary of its designation as a Sea Grant College by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Modeled after the land-grant tradition, sea-grant colleges are those institutions that have reached the highest level of achievement in coastal and marine science research, education and outreach. The Maine Sea Grant College Program supports scientific research at the university and other institutions statewide.

But the roots of Maine Sea Grant extend beyond 1980, to the first $100,300 awarded by the federal government in 1971 to the Darling Marine Center and David Dean for the “Culture of Resources in a Cold Water Marine Environment,” a “coherent project” to adapt existing aquaculture techniques and to develop new ways to grow shellfish in Maine’s unique, cold-water coastal environment.

Before then, aquaculture in Maine consisted of limited efforts by the state Department of Sea and Shore and federal Bureau of Commercial Fisheries to introduce European oysters to midcoast Maine (in 1949) and develop a soft-shell clam spawning program (in 1964). The infusion of sea grant funds supported the seawater system in the new 3,500-square-foot hatchery at the Darling Marine Center, and allowed researchers to begin experimenting with ways to grow shellfish to supplement wild stocks that had been depleted by overharvesting and pollution.

Since that first investment almost 40 years ago, aquaculture in Maine has expanded and grown in parallel with the Sea Grant Program, which continues to support aquaculture-related research and extension to shellfish growers and farms throughout the state.

Oysters are the great success story of Maine’s aquaculture industry, thanks to the University of Maine researchers and students who recognized that Maine’s clean, cold, brackish waters like the Damariscotta River were the ideal place to attempt to bring back a traditional local food.

With funding from Maine Sea Grant, Herb Hidu developed methods to culture the European oyster in the Damariscotta River adjacent to the Darling Marine Center. In addition to being naturalized in Maine waters, http://umainetoday.umaine.edu/past-issues/fall-2010/online-fall-2010/videos/maine-sea-grant-at-30/sea-grant-and-aquaculture-in-maine-a-history/ (2 of 6) [2/14/2011 2:03:45 PM] Sea Grant and Aquaculture in Maine: A History - UMaine Today Magazine

the European oyster was unique and different, and had market potential. At that time, a Maine Sea Grant study by Mark Richmond concluded that the native American oyster would not be profitable because no one had yet figured out how to make Crassostrea virginica survive in the state’s cold waters.

“Things went well until the parasite Bonamia arrived in the mid-1980s and pretty much wiped out the European oysters,” said Dick Clime, one of Hidu’s graduate students who co-founded Dodge Cove Marine Farm on the Damariscotta River, a grower of Pemaquid oysters.

With the European oysters devastated by disease, Hidu and the next generation of students reconsidered the native species and continued their research into the 1990s, this time focused on the native eastern or American oyster. Chris Davis earned his Ph.D. studying ways to breed oysters that grew faster and were better adapted to Maine’s cold waters. Today, he’s a partner in the Pemaquid Oyster Company, and Pemaquids could be considered Maine’s flagship oyster. Clime and Davis are among some 27 licensed oyster growers in the state.

Success of the oyster program prompted technician Sam Chapman to transfer the hatchery technology developed at the Darling Marine Center to Washington County, where soft-shell clam landings had been in decline. In 1987, Down East clammers and town officials, concerned about declines in soft-shell clam harvests, teamed up with Brian Beal, a professor of marine ecology at the University of Maine in Machias, and created the Beals Island Regional Shellfish Hatchery, Maine’s first public shellfish hatchery. It was the first shellfish management program in the U.S. using hatchery-reared, soft-shell clam juveniles to rebuild depleted stocks. The hatchery is now part of the expanded Downeast Institute for Applied Marine Research. Clam landings have remained steady at 10 million pounds per year, and their value has increased.

Mussels were another focus of Maine Sea Grant investment in the early years, when the state was still trying to establish a blue mussel industry. Ed Myers of Abandoned Farm, the country’s first commercial mussel farm, partnered with Maine Sea Grant to explore feasibility of commercial cultivation, including the first effort in North America to grow mussels suspended in the water column (as opposed to on the sea floor).

In 1973 when a Maine law was enacted permitting individuals to lease areas of public marine waters for aquaculture, Ed Myers obtained the first aquaculture lease. Overall, Maine Sea Grant provided $394,800 for mussel-related projects between 1974 and 1979, resulting in a 10-fold increase in mussel landings ($600,000/ year). The fledgling industry employed UMaine graduate student Carter Newell, who studied with Herb Hidu and Sam Chapman, and was hired as biologist in charge of quality control at Great Eastern Mussel Farms.

After 10 years of Maine Sea Grant investment in shellfish aquaculture, 50 small aquaculture companies had established in the state, their contributions to the economy exceeding the research, development and marine extension education costs invested by UMaine and Sea Grant. Today, Maine is host to 70 distinct shellfish http://umainetoday.umaine.edu/past-issues/fall-2010/online-fall-2010/videos/maine-sea-grant-at-30/sea-grant-and-aquaculture-in-maine-a-history/ (3 of 6) [2/14/2011 2:03:45 PM] Sea Grant and Aquaculture in Maine: A History - UMaine Today Magazine

farms; in the Damariscotta River alone, 23 aquaculture leaseholders grow oysters, mussels, scallops and clams.

Maine Sea Grant works at the intersection of science, natural resource-based industries, and Maine communities. With a Marine Extension Team (a partnership with University of Maine Cooperative Extension) skilled in facilitation and citizen engagement, Maine Sea Grant is able to bring disparate parties together to tackle difficult issues and find common ground. For example, when controversy arose in 2001 over a proposed salmon farm in Blue Hill Bay, Maine Sea Grant coordinated and facilitated a series of aquaculture information meetings around the state for the public and the industry to talk and understand each other outside of the regulatory process. The Department of Marine Resources subsequently adopted the meetings (“scoping sessions”) as part of the formal permitting process.

“Maine Sea Grant has played a vital role in providing technical support and education for shellfish growers that has led to the expansion and success of Maine’s shellfish aquaculture industry, from the first official lease for blue mussels in 1973 to almost 70 standard leases today along with numerous experimental leases and limited purpose licenses for mussels, oysters, and quahogs,” said Linda Mercer, director of resource management for Maine Department of Marine Resources.

In another example, Dana Morse established the Shellfish Working Group in collaboration with the . Chaired by Dick Clime, the ad hoc meeting of shellfish producers, scientists, regulators and law enforcement has improved communication and resource management. Informed by the working group conversations, researchers Bruce Barber and Kathy Boettcher began investigating Juvenile Oyster Disease, in part with Maine Sea Grant funding, and identified the causative agent as Roseovarius crassostreae. The working group has also rejuvenated the oyster program, which began in early 1980s as a collaboration between industry and UMaine scientists.

As the business of has evolved, so has Maine Sea Grant, with investment in research and extension related to integrated multitrophic aquaculture, and new efforts focused on marketing and branding of Maine’s

UMaine Today Magazinecultured shellfish, Home consumer education, and celebrating more than 30 years of bringing native oysters, mussels and clams to dinner tables in Maine and beyond. About UMaine Today

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